Chapter 9 - Right Place Wrong Time

Saturday, April 30, 1994

The conferences were nearly at an end—nearly two weeks of lectures and workshops crawling with every sort of elite. Some clueless, others razor-sharp brokers and cunning agents prowling for the next deal.

The men—and they were mostly men—were there to hunt deals and feed a forbidden hunger. In the early evening, receding hairlines and rounded bellies clustered in small groups, tossing back Jameson and puffing cigarettes. But as the night bled black, their monsters emerged, and they stalked the streets alone like wolves. Sara could sometimes catch their faces morphing into something feral; their shoulders would curve inward toward their chests, and if they glanced toward a dim streetlight, she could see their yellow eyes flicker.

Sara was flying home the next day. This was her last night in New Orleans. Dennis and Tammo had left days before. Word on the street whispered that Dr. John would play after-hours at Tip's. Tipitina's was a local icon for the music of New Orleans, a musical refuge of soul, zydeco, and funky jazz, but slowly bleeding out to the commercialization of the old city and the invasion of the House of Blues in the Quarter. During Jazz Fest week, anything could happen, including impromptu jam sessions by local or visiting performers. The only way to find out was word of mouth on the street. You had to walk it to find it to become part of the inner circle of seekers that nested in this city of darkness, willing to exchange thought for flesh and pleasure.

Sara saw herself as a passenger, along for a ride this trip. She wondered what it was like to grow up here in this steamy jungle, a place of hurricanes, alligators lurking in the canals, flying cockroaches, crawfish boils bleeding onto the street, and people, otherworldly creatures that looked to be in costume both day and night. Music crawled out from every corner like something alive, and the steamy cocktail of alcohol, rotting food, and decaying buildings oozed from the street like nocturnal predators emerging to feed.

Journal Entry: April 30, 1994

It was early evening at the VIP reception when I saw Rick again. Fourth year running I'd seen him. I'm not sure why. We had said our goodbyes many years ago—cut clean, or so I thought. I never told anyone this, not even Catherine, but Rick is Jax's father. Jax doesn't even know; I just told him his father was a one-night stand I had back when I was young, in college and focused on my career goals. Which is true. But I haven't told Jax that I've seen him since, that he keeps surfacing like a ghost I can't exorcise.

I met Rick in San Diego at Balboa Park thirteen years ago. He was in shorts, having just run several miles from his hotel room downtown where they housed the pilots and crew. Born in São Paulo with skin the color of honey and intense chocolate eyes that seemed to see straight through me. His body was carved like a weapon, powerful shoulders and muscles sculpted by some dark god. He had an unusual confidence, aggressive yet kind, and sexually bold in a way that should have been a warning. I admit he had a hold on me I can't explain—something primal and dangerous.

Rick was a pilot for United and preferred the South America flight schedule. Come to think of it, I never got a straight answer from him as to why he was at these conferences. Data science seemed like an unlikely obsession for him, except that he was fiercely intelligent and could dissect any topic with surgical precision. He often seemed to read my mind, a talent that both thrilled and unnerved me. But outside of these conferences, we didn't stay in touch.

We had collided for the last four years and always engaged in sharp discussions of politics or religion, subjects most people avoided like poison, or we would compare where we had recently played an overpriced round of golf during our travels. I claimed Pebble Beach but admitted it had once again destroyed me. He confessed to his yearly pilgrimage to Myrtle Beach with his entourage of conservative, mostly older finance cronies—men I thought too young to be fascinated by senior day at the country club, dollar bets on the 18th, and strip clubs.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Rick's predatory smile. He bent his 6-foot-3-inch frame to my ear and said, "You're not getting away this time."

A phantom passion swept over me like a fever, and I reached out and ran my fingers along the buttons of his white shirt. Through the fabric, I could feel the heat radiating from his body like a furnace. All around us were circles of people chattering about the collection and interpretation of data in financial markets while we were being consumed by each other. I could feel his heart hammering faster, and our usual dance of words stopped and held there, suspended in the thick atmosphere of bullshitting old men.

Something seized us simultaneously, a devil's compulsion as if we were being manipulated by forces beyond our thoughts. He took my arm without saying a word and led me to the balcony through glass doors, foggy with condensation. Only two couples were outside, sitting together at a round bar table. One woman fanned herself with a floppy research report, and the other swept blonde hair away from her face and then let it fall back again. I rolled my eyes at her obvious seductive ritual.

He led me to a corner behind a column and a large potted plant and pressed against me. One hand captured the side of my face and pulled it up toward him as his lips claimed my mouth. I was completely seduced by his firm grip and confident kisses that pressed me suddenly and brutally to the wall. His mouth moved down my shoulders as he pulled the neck of my blouse away and down toward my breasts. His hand reached up my skirt, and two fingers pushed inside me with devastating precision. I felt my knees buckle. He noticed and moved his hips closer pinning me to the brick wall. I could feel his hardness and warm fingers moving in me, and see sweat dripping from his brow. His other hand was behind me, pushing me into him with bruising force. We were both moaning quietly, but I heard someone say, "Did you hear that? Look over there." We had been discovered, and I begged him to take me to his room, but it was too late. My legs dissolved, and I let out a gasp and collapsed into his arms.

I can barely write this—commit this to words that don't exist for what we became. I felt out-of-body, consumed, and euphoric—unable to move as if I had been drugged. Was I? The thought sliced through my mind like a blade.

He kissed my neck and whispered, "Now we can go to my room."

Two hours later, we fell back onto the bed, lying beside each other as if we had been possessed. Energy drained from me like a vampire takes blood—leaving me hollow and aching.

All I could think to say was, "Come with me to Tip's." I knew I wanted him to devour me again later.

The singer that preceded Dr. John was a young girl barely in her twenties. She had long straight dark blonde hair and a small frame, almost too thin, like she was being consumed from within. She sat on-stage on an old stool with an acoustic guitar and played haunting songs from the seventies. Her voice was smooth and bold, but the songs were cool and distant, like echoes from a cemetery.

The singer had a striking resemblance to Sara's former college roommate named Jessica, who insisted on spelling her name Jesika. Although they were very different in spirit and cause and action, they had shared the intimate details of their lives, dreams, and ambitions for those years they spent in that small apartment near UCLA.

Sara had many ambitions, but Jesika had only one. She wanted—needed, she said—to be wealthy and refined like royalty. She believed she was a queen—a dark queen in a former life. She didn't seem to have a plan on how to become wealthy except to find a man of that stature to possess her. Jesika's innocent exterior concealed a gothic soul, and Sara had grown wary of her outbursts and irrational behavior. Jesika was obsessed with horror and fantasy—the works of Eddings, Tolkien, and Lovecraft—and would sometimes read aloud to Sara in the late evening, her voice taking on otherworldly tones.

It seemed too coincidental that night—the singer looking like Jesika reminded her of the stories she would tell, some sexual and brutal, and in others, she would mimic the guttural voice of the monster Cthulhu. She would say that he was the subconscious source of mankind's anxiety. Some would see him as a monster, but to others he was the subject of worship in places—particularly in New Zealand, China, and Louisiana.

Excerpt from Sara's Journal: April 30, 1994

A chill crawled through me after seeing the Jesika look-alike singer and my impulsive and dominated encounter with Rick tonight. Both awakened old, dark memories of abrupt madness that I thought I had buried.

Jesika's readings were often shocking as she performed them with theatrical precision, as if she was channeling her monsters. At first, I thought it was quaint and harmless until she sleepwalked one night out onto the balcony rail. I heard her open the patio door and got up to investigate. I called to her, but she didn't respond. I walked out onto the patio, approaching her from behind.

Her head turned, and I saw the face of a raven—dark and filled with ancient rage.

"Leave me," she hissed. "I see you, and you don't frighten me."

It was her voice, but not her face—something else was wearing her skin. I called to her to get down from there. I said I would help her and asked why she was there. How can I help you? I really didn't know what to say. I didn't even recognize the thing that had taken her place. Was it even her?

Suddenly her arms spread out like wings, and the wind caught her nightgown, causing it to billow out as she leaped off the edge with supernatural grace. I ran to the balcony edge and peered over, expecting to see her body falling. I didn't want to see, but I was compelled to look. But when I looked over the edge, there was nothing there. No one flying, no one falling, no one on the ground broken and bleeding. Just empty air and the sound of my own racing heartbeat.